Adonis Wolf
Lupus et cæcus, also known as the Adonis wolf, is a mammal like beast best known for being the apex predators of the colony, Adonis. Discovered in 2401, the wolf was originally believed to be a rare species upon the planet, only until 2405, it was discovered that they were quite commonly found hiding in the forests and mountains of Adonis. Later, scientist soon discovered that it was completely blind and became curious as to how it could even function in the wild. For over 153 years, scientists are still unable to figure out how it can survive and thrive out in the wildlands with a major disadvantage such as blindness. Research continues on Adonis-I at the Adonis Wildlife Preserve where over 100 wolves are kept and studied to this day. Discovery of the Adonis Wolf In 2381, the Adonis system was discovered by scientists on Reach and found that the 4th planet from the sun showed signs of Earth-like conditions. Seeing a potential future colony, probes were sent out to the planet to investigate the planet, after nearly a year of research and studying what the probes had sent, a called the UNSC A New Day was sent to begin colonization of the planet for human use. When the colony ship arrived at Adonis-I scientists began to explore the surrounding area. During this time, they had found a multitude of different wildlife. During this time, they had come across the prints of an unknown animal, it matched nothing in the records they had about the known wildlife of the planet. Believing they had stumbled upon a new animal not yet recorded when a group of scientist and colonists went out to find the new animal and try to study it...they never came back. It would be nineteen years before scientists set out to find the creature responsible for the massacre all those years ago. After getting set up on the planet, it was time to expand out into the woods, but worrying about the potential danger towards the colonists a larger party was formed with Levi Salheart the III and his brother, Jacob Salheart, leading the party into the woods. They traveled deep into the forest looking for signs of potential threats. Seeing they could not find it, they set up camp for the night. During the night, the party was ambushed by a pack of Adonis wolves while they slept, caught off guard party members were taken out one by one, Levi was the first to run from the area while his brother and a few other colonists tried to stand their ground. Levi was armed only with a when a wolf attacked him. Levi quickly retaliated and fired upon the pouncing beast, sending six bullets into its chest killing it instantly. Levi continued to run, deciding to return for the carcass later seeing his life was more important. Later that morning Levi made it to the camp as the sole survivor of the attack. he quickly gathered two other people and a loaded up on a and set out to recover the corpse. Which thankfully was still there. The wolf was then brought on board the colony ship to be studied, Levi along with seven other scientists spent over thirty hours dissecting and studying the wolf, but it was not enough for Levi, he wanted to study more of the beast after becoming intrigued by it. Levi left Adonis and set out to hire some of the best hunters in the known universe to help him recover a live specimen for study, he returned a month later with four professional hunters and set out to find a live wolf. Levi didn't care about the costs it would take, he wanted to study it, he wanted to know everything he could about them. Capturing the Adonis wolf When Levi returned to Adonis he was called crazy for wanting to capture a live wolf, as many believed he would end up like the others, but he was ready to prove them wrong. He and four other hunters set out into the forest and began their search. During their search, they came across a group of footprints that belonged to the wolves leading towards the rocky areas of the forest. Levi believed they would find their home there and continued fourth in his quest to capture one. the prints soon stopped right at where the small mountains formed, Levi decided to test a theory, he had produced. Levi believed that they could climb these mountains to reach high places for safety, so he and the group of hunters set up a trap right where the footprints had ended. Levi's plan was to set a snare up to keep it stuck and hit the beast with a strong tranquilizer dart then send the beast back home. After hours of waiting for the trap to be sprung a wolf soon came from its hiding spot and became stuck from the snare, the hunters quickly sprang into action and silenced the animal, but not before it let out a loud howl alerting nearby pack members of its situation, terrified of the situation Levi quickly had the animal loaded onto the spade and sent back colony for further research and study, but before he would be able to step onto the spade he was attacked by a wolf and had his left arm torn off, but his life was saved by one of the hunters right before the animal could land a killing blow on him. Now wounded, Levi feared for his life and quickly jumped into the spade’s passenger seat and ordered the driver to go leaving two of the hunters behind as they escaped. This would hardly affect Levi in the future as he kept to his belief that science required sacrifices. In the end, Levi's plan worked and now he had a live wolf this would be one of his proudest moments in life, the beast was studied for nearly three months and had taught Levi and the other scientists many things about the creature, they soon came to the conclusion that it shared similar habits and traits with that of a wolf, therefore giving it the name "Adonis Wolf". After learning what they could from it locked up in a cell they decided to install a mini camera and tracking beacon on its shell and release it back into the wild where they could learn how it would function within a pack and in the wild. Levi had gotten what he wanted and began to focus on his second idea, to turn the planet into a preserve. Information about the Adonis wolf Behaviors The Adonis wolf is a fair-sized animal that occasionally grows to a maximum of 5ft for males and 5 and a 1/2ft for females. The Adonis wolf is a pack hunting animal with the biggest recorded pack being around twenty-five wolves and the smallest recording being ten, leaving it with an average pack size of fifteen. The pack is lead by the alpha female rather than the alpha male as the females are noted to be more aggressive and stronger than their male counterparts. Females also commonly lead the hunting parties at night, with a few recorded cases of males leading the hunt. The wolves have a unique sleep schedule, they only sleep for twelve hours after every two days. During these two days the pack does whatever they please to do until nightfall, this where the pack goes out to hunt. The only pack members excluded from this are pups, pregnant females, and some of the older pack members. The hunting pack goes out to gather meat to share with the ones back at the dens after they deliver the meat, the pack returns out into the wild to gather food for themselves. Once the night ends so does the hunt and the pack return to the den. They also have similar communication skills to that of a canine using smells, barks, and howls to communicate with other pack members. They are also very territorial animals, but each pack of wolves highly respect each other’s territory and very rarely trespass into the areas that do not belong to them. The Adonis wolves tend to make their homes in deep areas of the forest where caves can be found or high up in rocky areas. The wolves hunting style is all about being quiet and fast. When the pack picks up the smell of prey they split up to hit them from two sides. The wolves hitting from the right side while crouching down and move slowly trying as little sound as possible and stalk the prey. The wolves hitting from the left side will quickly run around to the other side, they tend to stay away from the prey in order not to be spotted until they can get into position. Once doing so and the pack is ready to strike the leader will lunge first and attack the prey, while the other pack members strike one by one. This is usually how they deal with small to same size prey. When it comes to larger prey the alpha will attack first and use its teeth and claws to hook onto it, once doing so the process is repeated until the large prey is brought down and killed, the pack will then either bring back pieces of the prey or bring it back whole depending on its size. When it comes to turning hostile, the Adonis wolf will not back down from a fight. It will first attempt to growl, bark, and snap at the challenger in an attempt to scare it off. If that does not work it will attempt to headbutt the opposing force to knock it down, if it is larger than the beast it will attempt to lunge and sink its teeth into where it lands, just like hunting prey. Once it can show that it is stronger it will attempt to wound the opposing force then finish it off with a kill. Very rarely do wolves challenge each other, and when they do it turns into a game of dominance, they will ram heads together until one of them is unable to fight back and gives in, very rarely does this turn bloody, however if its a challenge of dominance the loser will always be killed by the winner of the challenge. When it comes to mating, they mate during the winter seasons so that the pups can be born during the times when the climate is warmer though they only mate when the pack's numbers are beginning to grow low. It has been noted that only the alphas mate and that a female can give birth to up a maximum of three pups. When born Adonis pups are born, their shells are extremely small and grow in size as the pups grow, the shell stops growing once the pup reaches adulthood. Appearance doesn't look like a wolf either now does it?|From the audio diary of Li Zhau, tour guide at the Adonis Wildlife Preserve.}} When it comes to appearances the Adonis wolf is far from looking like any normal wolf. The wolf's skin is the same skin as a though with a greyish black coloring to it. The wolfs armor is a more hardened version of its bones. Covering its front and hind legs, back, and the upper part of its skull. While the wolf only has one row of teeth, six of those teeth are twice the size of the others. Four of them are on top and the last two are on the bottom, while it can fully close its jaw, Adonis wolves prefer not too for an unknown reason. Its larger top outer teeth and bottom teeth are fixed mandibles, leading scientist to believe that at one point the wolves had mandibles that it could open and close. They later accepted that due to evolution they became fixed onto the skull. The wolf’s main line of defense was not only its teeth but also its claws. Each wolf has three claws on the front of their legs and three on the back of their hind legs, though the back ones are not as sharp as the ones up front and are mostly used for helping wolves climb when the time calls for it. Its front claws are used for defense as they have been shown to be sharp enough to cut skin with a hard-enough slash. Another thing that is the most common thing pointed out about the wolves are their lack of eyes. Adonis wolves are completely blind and have no sense of sight they rely on their other enhanced senses such as smell, sound, and another unknown factor that helps them. Scientist believes that this unknown factor is the main reason for their capability to survive out in the wild but have yet to uncover an answer to as how it works and is still a mystery to this day. When it comes to telling the difference between the two sexes of the wolf, females tend to be taller and heavier than their male counterparts by fifty pounds, this extra weight comes from the fact the female’s armor is thicker than the males by an inch. the Average size of armor thickness is one inch, meaning female armor is two inches total. Domestication It was believed that the Adonis wolf was an untameable species and would always remain wild, this was however proven wrong in 2500, during a routine tour of the area now called "The forest of wolves", a tourist had spotted a lone pup wandering around by itself in the area, this was extremely out of place and the tour guide called it in. A research team quickly rushed to the area before any other animal could reach the pup and possibly kill it. This was the first time anything like this had happened before and it was best to take the pup back to the center instead of trying to find it's pack due to the fact that the wolves could possibly kill the team. When they arrived at the center they had it checked out for any wounds or sickness. After the pup was taken to the medical wing Doctors reported the pup wouldn't stop crying until one of the members of the team that went to recover the pup would come back. They were extremely confused by the pup's reaction until they finally began to notice that is was acting like it was with a normal pack of wolves. The research team finally came to the conclusion that the pup thought that they were his new pack. It showed no hostility towards the humans as it grew up, instead of showing signs of affection and loyalty to the humans that had saved it. After two years the team decided to keep the now fully grown wolf around after it continued to show no sign of hostility. They had named the first-ever rescued pup, Lucky. Over time more and more pups would be rescued and adopted by the employees of the wildlife center. A total of over 106 pups would be rescued and adopted from 2500-2558 and all have lived and died at the Adonis Wildlife Preserve Center. As of 2558 four known wolves live at the center. * Runt (A three-year-old male wolf rescued on August 2nd, 2552) * Valentine (A two-year-old female wolf rescued on February 14th, 2553) * Dallas (A nine-year-old male wolf rescued on December 30th, 2548) * Bubba (A six-month-old male pup rescued on August 10th, 2558) The tamed animals are allowed outside the research center under the watch of a trainer and are used to teach tourists more about the Adonis wolf and are also trained in many different tricks to also entertain them as well. The wolves are known to be one of the main attractions and have reached somewhat of a small popularity within the other colonies. Though they are not as popular as the Morolaath is.